Date:         Thu, 31 Oct 2002 22:29:19 -0600
Reply-To:     Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Organization: not likely
Subject:      Re: custom side turn signals?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

> Our vanagons have red running lights/reflectors on
the side in the rear, and
> I am wondering, has anyone tried to modify these
lights to be turn signals
> only, or perhaps some form of hybrid (running
light/turn signal) ?  The
> wiring seems fairly straight forward.
> Just curious if anyone out there has any mods they
can tell about, with
> their side running lights.

i've been futzing around with this for a while ... and
have yet to come up with something i truly like the
looks of AND will fit easily.

1. on the rabbits and sciroccos of the 1980's, there
were yellow running lights on the sides of the front
fenders .. those are exactly the same as our rear red
ones, but amber in color. same size, shape, everything.
so i figured that it would look right to put them in
the same relative position, behind the front wheel
well. won't fit ... the b-pillar (vertical post behind
the front door) isn't wide enough ... about an inch of
the light sticks past the rear edge/seam of the
b-pillar. not a problem on the side with no sliding
door but on the side with the sliding door, that could
be a big problem. and on the non-syncros, the gas
filler opening kinda got in the way. on a syncro, there
is likely plenty of room to do this.
a problem: these lights take a HUGE hole for the light
fixture/bulb-holder AND two screw holes. the hole for
the fixture is like 40mm!!

2. led lights from jc whitney. long and narrow, about
$8 each. look funny on the side of the bus. so i tried
them under the bottom of the power mirrors (plastic
housing so it's easy to drill a hole for the wires,
plenty of room inside to run the wires up to the
lights) ... but the bottom edge turns out to NOT be
flat/square ... and the light doesn't fit well.
other lights? tried some marker/running lights from
18-wheeler trailers .. bulb ones are like $5, led ones
are like $20!! this doesn't look that great ... the
lens pops into a snap-in holder and the holder is
expected to be screwed into metal to provide the
grounding of the light. this could be modified without
too much trouble (solder a wire to the light). but the
holder looks cheap. :(  these lights are kinda expected
to be broken a lot, i guess.

3. marker lights from a dodge dually pickup. similar to
18-wheeler lights but black plastic holder (instead of
cheesy plastic chrome). haven't checked them out fully
yet ... never made to the dodge dealer. only saw them
on a dually in a parking lot.
these might fit nicely on the side of the bus, behind
the front doors, on that b-pillar. perhaps in the
indention/trim-line where the door handles are. running
the wires would be somewhat difficult, but it could be
done ... that pillar is hollow, and open at the top ...
you can feed a wire done into it from the courtesy
light opening on the driver's side. on the passenger
side, you'd have to open up the hidden courtesy light
opening, behind the headliner vinyl .. but all that
means is putting in a 2nd courtesy light ... which
might be a good idea anyway.

4. bmw or porsche or mercedes or late-model vw lights.
made by hella. easily available from the dealers in
different styles (from the different years), but they
all snap into a rather large hole ... about 1 inch by
1/2 inch. :( i didn't mind the idea of two smallish
screw holes and maybe a third small hole for the wires,
but a hole that big didn't appeal to me. the audi ones
from the early 1990's were the best shape for our
buses, i think ... rectangular with a domed top. still
might go this route. but they aren't cheap! these
things are like $20 each! :(

anybody else got any info/ideas?

joel